and now my heart stumbles
by crystalballbenny
Summary: Ethan and Benny forget about Sarah's birthday, so they make her a cake. It's equally terrible and awesome. Benny/Ethan!


_**Side Note : I was listening to sappy music and it rained, so of course I was inspired to write some Bethan :D! To be honest, I have that list of about twenty seven different fics just floating around and now I go onto a random number generator and write whichever one pops out (usually). This time I got my little snippet about baking a cake, so here we go!**_

_**And just a quick clarification because I can't decide on what to do with myself, yes, I am TheKoganKid, or wayward-wendigo, or leatherlikedean- whichever person you signed up to me on. I have henceforth changed my name to crystalballbenny because this is now going to by my MBAV fanfiction account. **_

_**Anywho, let's get this show on the road! **_

_**Title is from the song Awake My Soul by Mumford & Sons (my favorite band eeeep)**_

_**~.~.~**_

Ethan's sitting on his bed, reading _Fahrenheit 451 _for his English class, when Benny bursts in with a large crash. He looks fully distressed, with his shirt askew to one shoulder, hair in crazy curls, and eyes feral.

"_Dude_," Benny breathes in a way of greeting, and Ethan knows that something's wrong. "Tomorrow is Sarah's birthday."

He sits on his bed, calmly and blankly oblivious, for all of about three seconds. He's got his thumb stuck on page seventy three, and his feet are still curled up to his chest comfortably.

Then Ethan's rocketing off of the bed, book forgotten on the ground, and he looks as panic-y as Benny, if not tenfold so.

_"Oh my God_." he shouts back, as if they hadn't crossed the freak-out bridge already. "We are _terrible _friends."

"You're her best friend," Benny fights, fingers twisting in his wild hair.

Ethan shouts back, "You're banging her best friend, so you count too!"

_**~.~.~**_

After around ten more minutes of shouting back and forth about how horrible of people they are, Ethan and Benny calm down enough to think of something to get Sarah. Erica's already getting her the newest Lana Del Ray album, and Rory's getting her a book and some of her favorite nail polish.

"How do you know this?" Ethan asks in a desperate plea.

"Rory and Erica were talking about her birthday party tomorrow for the five of us and Christ, E, I almost _peed _myself."

Ethan wrinkles up his nose cutely when Benny says this, and waves the images away at once. "Gross, Benny- let's stick to the problem."

"It _could have been a problem_- no way to hide that kind of thing with keen vampires hangin' around your locker-"

"_Benny_."

Benny almost has the gall to grin at Ethan, but one withering look at his boyfriend and he knows that it's best to keep quiet for fear of incurring some serious Morgan wrath.

Ethan takes a few steps around his room and ends up plunking down in his computer chair, hands in his hair and eyes wide.

"We are so screwed." he exclaims. "I was going to get her the Lana Del Ray album, but I forgot to go to the store last week."

"Well, at least you thought of something good to get her," Benny tells him with praise. "I was going to get her some plastic vampire teeth or the _Twilight _Saga on DVD to see if I could get a rise out of her."

Ethan finds humor still left in the panic currently raging around inside of him like a hurricane, and he grins widely through the anxiety. "Seriously? Dude, that rocks."

"Thanks." Benny holds his hands up in false modesty, smiling slow and cool. "I thought of it myself."

Ethan nods, but then it turns into a shake. "No- _focus_. What are we going to get her?"

"Obviously not anything that would be as simple as buying and wrapping, seeing as how her _best friend doesn't know what kinds of things she would like-"_

"Then we make something," Ethan cuts Benny off, looking a little less stressed out. "Well, what does she need? A jewelry display, maybe? You know, candlesticks and some plates?"

Benny gives him a look, and finally takes a seat on Ethan's bed; he's sitting so close that their knees knock together and Ethan has to refrain from moving and kissing Benny senseless because that would be slightly odd for their topic of choice.

"Ethan, no more late-night YouTube sessions for you. You're turning into a Pottery Barn kind of mom."

Ethan levels him with an unamused look, and Benny just pats his knee with one long, warm hand. It feels like a campfire through the jean material and Ethan indulges in his impulses by taking that hand with his own. Their fingers slide together easily and he ignores the small flutter in his chest.

"We could bake her something." Benny suggests, squeezing Ethan's hand lightly. "Like, her cake."

This earns him another dubious look. "Doesn't her mom already have her cake since the party's tomorrow?"

"No- Erica said she was having it customized but they ruined it so she got her money back and now has no cake. She was just going to go up to _Millie's Bakery _and get one."

Ethan thinks about this for a moment before his face splits open like an egg and the light swoops back into his eyes as though lightning struck them. Benny thinks these moments make Ethan beautiful beyond words.

"Then we'll make her cake for her," Ethan tells him, and reaches for his cellphone.

_**~.~.~**_

"Hello? Elise?"

_"Hey, Ethan! What's up, buttercup?" _

Ethan smiles at Benny, who can hear every word and is currently fighting back laughter. Sarah's mother is always one giant ball of sunshine when talking to just about anybody, and has cute pet names she likes to use. Buttercup is the one she always uses when answering the phone, and Angelface is what she says when clicking off- _"Adios, Angelface."_

"Benny told me that your cake for Sarah got ruined at the shop you ordered it from, so I was wondering if we could make her cake? Erica took our gift idea and we're running on empty here."

Elise laughs through the phone, and Ethan knows at once that she'll say yes, because Elise never says no. She's the Yes Mom.

_"Of course, Sugar. Her favorite's Red Velvet." _

Ethan beams like the fucking sun and Benny squeezes his hand, where the joined fingers rest on his thigh. "Thanks, Elise- you're the best."

_"No problem, Ethan. Have fun and thanks bunches. Adios, Angelface." _

Ethan throws his cellphone away to his pillows and turns to his computer. "Now to look up a cake recipe."

Benny comes with him as Ethan turns away, and they share the chair, side to side with no space for even a piece of paper to go. They don't notice and don't let go of each other's hand.

_**~.~.~**_

"We need to go down the baking aisle first- for the sugar, flour, and mostly everything else."

Benny pushes the cart along obligingly, looking to the ceiling for the aisle number. "Why doesn't your mom have these things in the kitchen? Didn't she just make her book club some brownies, like, last week?"

Ethan looks green at the thought of his mom's brownies, which looked more like squares of muddy swamp sludge than dessert, and Benny doesn't blame him. The whole house smelled like burned rubber for three days.

"Yeah, but she wants me to experience the 'art of shopping for myself', or something like that."

"So, she didn't want to pay for our cake stuff."

Ethan nods as they turn down the aisle. "Exactly."

Benny snorts through his nose and pulls Ethan's list up to his face. It's long as all get-out, because they've decided to not only make the cake from scratch, but the frosting as well. Benny is absolutely gung ho on buying the damn thing, but Ethan had cried about it needing to be 'genuine' or something equally girly, and so he shut his mouth to avoid a cold shoulder.

"Well," he decides, sighing. "most of it _is _down the baking aisle. We can always truck over to the refrigerated section next."

They go down the designated aisle and Ethan immediately goes for the cake flour. Benny doesn't see how it's any different from all-purpose flour, but he's been horribly wrong about things like this before. It seems wise to follow the directions as is.

"What I would like to know," Ethan hears a few moments later, head buried in a shelf. "is why we need apple cider vinegar for this. Who the _hell _puts any kind of vinegar in cake at all?"

Ethan grabs a small bottle of the vinegar and turns to find Benny frowning deeply at the list. He looks cute as hell, eyebrows squished together and fingers curled in his hair, and Ethan has to refrain from dragging him closer and kissing him silly.

Instead, he replies with: "Ben, it's literally like, two teaspoons. Calm down."

Benny rolls his eyes and sticks his tongue out at Ethan, who promptly whaps it with the list. Benny looks wounded at once and Ethan fights back a smile.

He leans forwards to read off what they need next, the list still stuck to Benny's mouth.

"We have the apple cider vinegar, the cake flour, and the baking soda. My mom has sugar, salt, and vanilla extract. We still need the cocoa powder, vegetable oil and food coloring."

Benny cheers sarcastically. "Then onto the refrigerated items. Yippee skippy."

He rolls the cart forwards and almost runs a little girl with pigtails and a _Barbie _t-shirt over. When her mother gives them the Evil Eye and pulls her daughter away, Ethan sighs and beats his head against a box of _Funfetti_.

"I am never bringing you anywhere ever again."

_**~.~.~**_

If Ethan thought that the grocery shopping was an absolute horror, then making the cake is actual footage from _Saw_. Because baking is _not _a skill either of them possess.

After buying everything they needed from the store (and Ethan dropping in a package of cookies for Benny with thank-you kiss in return), the two began unloading and baking at once.

Making a cake from scratch turns to out to be the worst idea Ethan's ever had, and he's best friends with a bunch of high school vampires and is dating a warlock. They have absolutely _no _clue as to what they're doing.

"Um, so- it says to sift the flour." Benny reads off again, looking back between the cake flour and the directions. "Does that mean, like, shake the bag or something?"

"And throw it through the window on accident? No, Benny." Ethan reaches over and gently takes the flour out of the other's hands. It might be the only thing he actually knows how to do in the kitchen, but by God he's going to be the bomb diggity at it. "You pour it through a sifter to get out the lumps."

Benny raises an eyebrow with a perfectly imperfect arch. "_Do _you have a sifter?"

And if Ethan blushes and Benny notices, he totally grins smugly. "Well... No. But- I do have a colander."

"That's like replacing a space helmet with a fish bowl." Benny grins at him.

And Ethan wants to be embarrassed or irritated, but Benny looks so goofily proud of himself that Ethan just laughs and punches him lightly in the abdominal. Benny grabs his wrist and strokes over his pulse while he reaches for the colander.

"This will work perfectly fine, Emerald. Calm down."

Benny shrugs, saying _'Whatever you says goes' _silently, and just lets go Ethan's hand so he can sift the damn flour.

After the flour is sifted, Ethan directs Benny towards the refrigerator with a flail of the spatula. "How about you get cracking on the frosting?"

"Literally." Benny says, and when Ethan looks over his shoulder, Benny's holding the carton of eggs in his huge hands. "With _Eggland's Best_. Get cracking on your cooking today."

Ethan laughs so hard that he ends up banging his forehead on the mixing bowl and gets flower all over his hair and shirt. Benny then laughs so hard at him that he falls onto the counter and smashes his elbow on the edge.

_**~.~.~**_

The rest of the baking goes somewhat smoothly. Except for how it doesn't.

When they finally get the cake mixture into two separate pans (Ethan wanted to be fancy and make a layer cake; Benny just wanted to not be a horrible person) and into the oven, Ethan puts the frosting into the refrigerator and turns around.

His kitchen is an absolute disaster. Flour covers every available surface like dust, not excluding himself and Benny, who looks like someone threw snow at him. There are egg spatterings around the island where Ethan was mixing the cake together, and there's cream cheese where Benny was mixing the frosting. The stove has a giant glob of red food coloring and butter on it, and the microwave is covered in a thin veiling of vegetable oil. The baking soda is on its side, spilling out onto the countertop.

It looks like an actual bakery blew up in Ethan's kitchen.

"We should clean this up before my mom gets home." he tells Benny seriously, poking him in the chest with the whisk. "She'll kill us if she sees this mess."

"Yeah." Benny nods, but when he turns to look over his shoulder, his hands fall to Ethan's hips. "Or we could make out. We still have thirty seven minutes until the cake's done. Your mom won't be home for an hour."

Ethan should protest. But he _really,_ _really _doesn't want to.

"Or we could do that." he agrees, grinning cheekily.

Benny grins back, and Ethan's barely got the whisk in the sink before Benny's hauling him up. Bear hands fanned out across his ass, the taller boy lifts him onto the countertop and immediately crowds into him. Benny kisses him so deeply and hungrily that Ethan's head knocks back against the cupboard, but he hardly feels it.

Their clothes are already pretty much trashed, so Ethan has no problem digging his fingers into Benny's old _Batman _t-shirt and pulling him closer. He smells like flour and kiwi shampoo and _Old Spice_, a scent so familiar to Ethan that it's become apart of his house- his entire _life _revolves around the smell. He tastes the same way, but there's something tangy on Benny's tongue when it sweeps against his own.

Pulling away and breathing out a laugh, Ethan looks at Benny with fond exasperation.

"You ate some of the frosting."

Benny doesn't even try to feign shame, and just grins in agreement. "I ate some of the frosting."

He runs his hands up Ethan's jeans and pulls his knees in closer around his sides. Benny's bracketed in between them, towering form with lean shoulders and warm skin and all. He looks so beautiful that Ethan's stomach twists and almost crawls right up his throat. He can't help curling his fingers in Benny's hair to drag him back down and kiss him like he means it.

_**~.~.~ **_

They don't burn the cake necking like a couple of idiots, which is a plus.

They do misjudge their timing, though, because Ethan bends down to pull the cake out and Benny sidles up against him again and can't keep his hands off. Ethan hardly has time to throw the cake pans on the stove before Benny's got him up against the wall-length cupboards and is kissing him all over again.

Samantha gets home from her girl's day out to find them making out (again) in the kitchen, flour and butter and egg everywhere _still_.

"Boys!" she shouts, and they spring apart like someone just tazed them. They look absolutely _wild_, with red lips and ruddy cheeks and crazed eyes and mussed hair. She almost grins, but keeps up the mad-mom-facade.

"Hey, Mom." Ethan says meekly, waving like the dork that he is. "Uh, we baked Sarah's cake."

Samantha raises and eyebrow and looks around her kitchen pointedly. "I can see that."

Benny looks horribly sheepish, and with his head bent, he goes to the sink and pulls out a rag. "We'll start cleaning."

Samantha nods and marches upstairs, leaving the two to their own devices.

"It smells great!" she yells over her shoulder.

Ethan grins so widely that it hurts, and slinking over to the sink as well, he leans up and plants a kiss on the back of Benny's neck.

"We don't completely suck!"

_**~.~.~**_

"You don't completely suck," Sarah says, looking at the cake with obvious awe.

After cleaning up the kitchen and exchanging a few more kisses, Ethan and Benny actually managed to stop fooling around and finish the task at hand. They frosted the entire thing together, two large and thick layers of cake, with Benny's frosting and decorated it with candy hearts. It looked pretty freakin' spiffy once finished, and Ethan's proud to call it theirs.

"I was just hoping you'd like it enough to forget we didn't actually get you anything." Benny admits, laughing and running a hand through his hair. "Erica took our idea."

Curling her lip back, Erica hisses at Benny, but it's all show and no heat. She notices this when Benny doesn't flinch back, and adds to it by throw a heart at him. He catches it easily and pops it into his mouth like an idiot.

Sarah grins at them and walking around the table, hugs both Benny and Ethan with her long arms.

"You guys are the best." she tells them quietly, and leans into the touch when they hug her back. "I love your cake more than I could _ever _love anything store bought."

"Good, because it was all we could think of." Benny laughs again, but preens none the less.

Sarah pinches his shoulder and causes him to laugh even harder.

_**~.~.~**_

The cake tastes as good as it looks, and when everyone does tries it, they're absolutely blown away.

"_Wow,_" Erica nods, looking at Benny with wide eyes. "If you could do magic as well as you can cook, we'd never screw up again."

This leads to fight resulting in frosting and candy hearts all over Sarah's living room.

It's the best party _ever_.

_**~.~.~**_

_**AN: Again, it rained, so I wrote xD That's basically how I function, and now that it's summer, maybe it'll rain more and get me into gear. Or maybe I should move to Washington O.o **_

_**But anywho, I hope you liked this stupid little one shot, and thought the boys were as sweet as the cake they made ;D **_

_**I used this recepie for it, in case anyone wants to give it a go: **__** . **_

_**Cheers, and have a lovely day!**_


End file.
